By Al Kamen. Monday, May 7, 2001; Page A17.
The Washington Post
Jose Can You See?
President Bush may have reached out to Hispanic voters Saturday by doing his
radio address in Spanish, but it will no doubt spark unwarranted criticism from
Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Castro recently took another cheap shot at Bush, ridiculing Bush's Spanish
and saying Bush had misquoted Cuban independence hero and poet Jose Marti. Bush,
at the Summit of the Americas in Canada last month, quoted Marti as saying "freedom
is not negotiable."
At a news conference a few days later, Castro said Marti never wrote that
and suggested it would be a good idea to send Bush a Marti scholar and some of
Marti's books and a Spanish teacher, according to Agence France-Presse. The
official Cuban media has described Bush's Spanish as "mediocre."
No one's claiming Bush is exactly fluent, but the White House, citing a book
by Carlos Ripoll called "Jose Marti Thoughts," says Castro has it
wrong.
Testing the Embargo on Sexology
Speaking of Cuba . . . Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban military chief Raul
Castro and niece of President Castro, applied for a visa to participate in the
annual conference of the World Association of Sexology, called "A sex
odyssey, a journey toward healthy sexuality," in San Francisco last week.
She is a psychologist at Cuba's national center for sexual education. | 